Factors Impacting Optimism about Future Mobility: A Descriptive Study

This study aims to understand the factors that impact an individual’s level of optimism regarding their mobility in the income ladder, within respective countries. For this, widely used International Social Survey Program (ISSP)’s “Social Inequality-V (SIV)” Module with unit level dataset has been used. The SIV module contains data from 29-member ISSP countries constituting 44,975 individuals, through an internationally conducted, self-reported survey. The respondents were asked to report themselves in one of ten categories based on their present income and then in the next question were asked where they think they will be 10 years later, on the same scale. We re-categorized the scale into three groups of income (Low, Middle, High or L/M/H), then used mobility across the three categories to determine whether an individual’s response can be deemed optimistic or pessimistic. The results from multivariate multinomial logistic regression analysis suggest that the individual’s level of optimism varies across the globe and with individual socio-economic as well as household characteristics. The findings suggest that the individual characteristics such as age, sex, level of education, place of residence and family size among others are significantly associated with an individual’s reporting of optimism. The age of the individual plays a significant effect on the outcome indicators. For example, as age increases, the probability of reporting optimism declines. While most previous studies look at optimism as an independent variable impacting various socio-economic parameters, this paper takes optimism as a dependent variable in order to see what leads to a certain level of optimism or pessimism among individuals of various income groups.